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02-09-2009, 08:08 AM
The purpose of the International Whaling Commision moratorium on commercial whaling is to allow whale populations to recover such that sustainable commercial whaling can continue in the future. Japan's stance is that because a simple population count is not considered enough by the anti-whaling members of the IWC to determine the sustainablity of a comercial hunt they will use lethal methods to track the population dynamics. The measured taking of animals is a common method to determine that a population of animals is strong enough to support controlled hunting.
I see no issue with Japan's whaling operations. They're quota is between 0.13% and 0.26% of the Antactic Minke whale population, 338,000-665,000 depending on which population figure you use, and the whale is not considered endangered by most definitions.
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